Saturday, February 27, 2010

Weekend Document Imaging Notes 2/26/10



- According to Modern Healthcare magazine, here are the most popular Electronic Health Records (EHR) software systems for acute care facilities:
- Meditech of Westwood, MA, has 26.6% of market
- McKesson of Alpharetta, GA has 14.1% of market
- Cerner of Kansas City, MO has 12.6% of market
- Siemens of Malvern, PA (HQ in Germany) has 9.5% of market
- CPSI of Mobile, AL has 7.9% of market
- Epic Systems of Verona (Madison), WI has 6% of market
- Eclipsys of Boca Raton, FL has 5.5% of market
- Healthcare Management Systems of Nashville, TN has 5.3% of market
- Healthland of Glenwood, MN has 3.8% of market
- 8% of hospitals surveyed have developed their own proprietary systems

- At the upcoming Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society (HIMSS) show on 2/1-4/2010 in Atlanta, GA, the following companies will have trade show booths:

- AthenaHealth, who offers physician billing, practice management and EHR
- Liberty Solutions Inc., a dealer for Cerner, Allscripts, Siemens, Epic, Eclipsys, Meditech & McKesson
- Ambir Technology, maker of card scanners
- Axolotl, maker of Elysium Exchange solutions
- Computer Discount Warehouse (CDW) Healthcare division
- ClearWave Inc., authentication kiosk manufacturer
- Emdeon, payment cycle solutions provider
- InterSystems, maker of Cache’ database software and DeepSee business intelligence software
- NextGen Healthcare, provider of EHR
- Sage Inc., provider of EHR
- SSI Group, provider of claims processing solutions
- Sunquest Information Systems, provider of diagnostic information technology solutions
- Wellsoft, provider of EDIS patient tracking and clinical documentation solutions

- According to HIMSS, about 23% of all data security breaches of healthcare institutions are caused by an employee.

- Joy Pritts, a lawyer from Georgetown University, was named the Chief Privacy Officer for the Health & Human Services (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, as part of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Under the new law/stimulus bill, she will advise on the data security of healthcare agencies using Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems.

- When implementing Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems, requirements that must be addressed include:
- Capturing admission forms, ID and insurance cards
- Scanning patient records
- Transmitting lab instructions
- Filing insurance claim forms (CMS-1500 & UB-04)
- Processing EOB forms
- Processing supplier invoices
- Meeting FDA and other regulatory obligations
- Complying with record retention policies and privacy regulations (HIPAA laws)
- Allowing doctors and administrators simultaneous access to patient clinical records while controlling varying levels of security
- Incorporating Xrays, EKGs, MRIs, test results and supplemental documents with patient records
- Providing access to patient records from remote locations to prescribe treatment

- According to Khaled El Emam, a professor at University of Ottawa, up to 15% of healthcare insurance claims in the U.S. are fraudulent. In New York, alone up there is up to $4 billion in Medicare/Medicaid fraud.

- In the ARRA act, the current rules for healthcare providers to get stimulus funds, includes three requirements as part of the “meaningful use” rules, labeled as “core measures”:
- requirement to record whether a patient uses tobacco
- requirement to record blood pressure
- requirement to record the percentage of elderly patients who receive either one or two prescription drugs deemed to be of “high risk” to the elderly

- Customer confused to difference between EMR (electronic medical records) and EHR (electronic health records)?
- EMR is an umbrella, includes EHR, and encompasses electronically born records as well as paper records
- EHR is roughly 60-75% of patient information, born electronically

- The Justice Department has requested a $2 million budget increase so it can hire 12 attorneys for electronic discovery support.

- Data from recent survey of businesses that use third party managed IT services (MSP) conducted by Ziff Davis:
- Ability of MSPs to exceed customer expectations
- Mean Time Between Failure = 25%
- Systems Uptime = 25%
- Overall Quality = 20%
- Contribution to Meeting Company Business Goals = 16%
- PC Maintenance Expenses = 14%
- Most Common MSP Task Performed:
- AntiVirus = 91%
- Data Backup = 89%
- Help Desk = 72%
- MS Windows patches = 71%
- Remote Admin = 71%
- Systems Monitoring = 68%
- PC Audits = 38%
- PC Discovery = 21%
- Number one reason why MSP fails to sign up a client is when MSP sales rep calls on IT Mgr. instead of CFO, as the IT Mgr. views the MSP as a threat to their job

- THINKstrategies research published results of survey regarding usage of MSPs (managed IT service provider):
- 30% of companies with revenues of $50 million or less are using MSPs
- 55% of companies with revenues over $50 million are using MSPs
- 52% of SMBs (small to medium sized businesses) are NOT considering using MSPs

- Lenovo, which is headquartered in China, and purchased the personal computer division of IBM, announced that it will launch a managed IT services division in 2010.


-=Cheers from Sandy Hook=-

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Sharp MX-2301N "Spec Review"


- Sharp launched a new A3 color MFP overseas that it may also launch in U.S. The new MX-2301N features:
- 23ppm top speed b/w or color
- 4 tandem OPC drum design
- Based on the Pastel platform, same as existing MX-2600N and others
- 8.1” color LCD touch screen display
- Does NOT have retractable keyboard like other models
- Optional OSA embedded software
- Built-in print/scan controller (most likely made by Zoran)
- Does NOT offer XPS print driver
- Does NOT offer hard disk overwrite/erase
- Does NOT offer Internet fax
- Optional fax board
- 100 sheet document feeder, with top speed of 50opm (does NOT scan both sides of original at same time)
- Comes standard with two 500 sheet drawers and 100 sheet stack bypass
- Auto duplex standard
- Can two more 500 sheet drawers
- Optional internal stapling finisher only

-=Cheers from Sandy Hook=-

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Kyocera TASKalfa 552ci "Spec Review"


- Kyocera now shipping the new TASKalfa 552ci color laser MFP featuring:
- Base MSRP of $20,168
- 55ppm b/w and 50ppm full color top speeds
- 4 tandem amorphous silicon drum design, with life of only 300,000 pages
- 8.5” tilting color touch screen LCD display
- 58 second warmup time
- 4.6 second first b/w copy out time, 6.1 seconds for color
- 225K/month max duty cycle
- Black toner yield of 25,000 pages based on 5% coverage per page
- Color toners yield 18,000 pages
- 600x600dpi
- Advertised as offering 8 bit color depth (but does not specify if it offers 8 bits per pixel)
- Built-in print controller
- 2GB RAM standard
- Two 160GB hard drives standard (print and copy)
- Hard drive data security kit $580
- Copy data security kit $1155
- 800MHz processor
- PCL, PostScript & XPS print drivers standard
- Peerless technology
- 10/100BaseT & USB ports standard
- No optional 1000BaseT port
- Scan to email/LDAP/SMB/FTP/USB/TWAIN standard
- No EFI Fiery option
- Two document feeder choices:
- DP-750 100 sheet feeder that does NOT scan both sides of original at same time
- top speed of 75opm for $1360
- DP-760 100 sheet feeder that DOES scan both sides at same time
- top speed of 50opm for duplex scan or 100ipm for $1800
- Optional fax board with PC fax for $1155
- Requires $200 memory board
- Up to 400dpi only
- Can add second fax line
- Internet fax option for $300
- Comes standard with two 500 sheet paper drawers supports up to 90lb. index only
- Standard 100 sheet stack bypass supports up to 120lb. index only
- Does not support 10pt. card stock
- Can add two more 500 sheet paper drawers for $1286
- Can add 3,000 sheet letter only paper drawer for $1380
- Auto duplex standard and supports up to 90lb. index only
- A3 and supports up to 11”x17” paper sizes
- Finishing options include:
- 30 sheet corner stapling finisher for $1540
- 50 sheet multi-position stapling finisher for $2617
- Booklet making option is $1500
- Hole punch kit is $680
- Mailbox unit is $1000
- A print only version, the FS-C8500DN has base MSRP of $5973

-=Cheers from Sandy Hook=-

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Ricoh MP 4001 & MP5001 "Spec Review"


These new units are identical to the previous MP 4000 & MP 5000. The only diffference is the addition of App2Me and PPDM.

- Ricoh now shipping the Aficio MP 4001 and 5001 digital b/w laser MFPs offering:
- 40 & 50ppm top speeds respectively
- MSRPs of $12,030 for MP4001 and $14,870 for MP5001
- 100 sheet document feeder with top scan speed of 61opm for b/w and 33opm for full color
- Does NOT scan both sides of original at same time
- 600x600dpi
- A3 offering up to 11”x17” paper size
- 22 second warmup time
- 4.1 second first copy out time
- Drum yield of 160,000 pages
- 30,000 page yield for black toner based on 5% coverage per page
- 200K/month max duty cycle
- Main unit weighs only 213.8 lbs.
- 8.5” color touchscreen control panel
- Two 550 sheet paper drawers standard
- Can add two more 550 sheet drawers for $1520
- 2,000 sheet letter size only drawer for $1570
- Can also add a 1,200 sheet side mount letter only paper deck for $1570
- Auto duplex standard up to 45lb. bond only
- Paper drawers can only hold up to 55lb. bond, but 100 sheet stack bypass
can hold up to 58lb. bond
- Can not handle 10 point stocks
- Built-in print/scan controller standard:
- 768MB RAM (no upgrades available)
- 40GB hard drive
- 533MHz processor
- 10/100BaseT & USB ports
- Optional 1000BaseT port for $340
- PCL print driver standard
- PostScript print driver is option for $920
- No XPS print driver available
- Optional hard drive overwrite kit for $420
- Optional hard drive encryption kit for $390
- Optional file format converter for hard drive document storage for $605
- actual maker unknown
- Scan to email/LDAP/HDD/folder/URL standard
- Optional Mail to Print feature allows user to send an email to unit for printing without need for print driver
- Comes standard with Personal Paperless Document Manager (relabeled Nuance OCR scan software) for single user, can add 4 more users for $200
- Optional 101 keyboard that pulls out underneath the color LCD for $449
- Optional App2Me software:
- create customized workflow
- combine/distribute/edit/create documents
- Optional fax board for $1150
- Up to 400dpi only
- Requires 32MB memory board for $185
- Can add two more fax lines for $650 apiece
- PC faxing standard
- Finishing options include:
- require bridge unit for $230
- 50 sheet corner stapling finisher for $1480
- 50 sheet multi-position stapling finisher for $2680
- Hole punch kit for $765
- Booklet making finisher for $4110

-=Cheers=-

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Copier & MFP Lease Calculator



I ran across this today while doing some updates. This link will tell you what the interest rate is on a copier or MFP lease.

Use scenario #2 for figuring the interest rate.

Remember to use 20% of the purchase price in the residual value area if you are fuguring a Fair Market Value lease. If you plan on returning the equipment at the end of the term, enter zero for the residual value slot.

If you are calculating a one dollar purchase option, then enter $1.00 in the residual value slot.

Enter the purchase price of the equipment, then the term of the lease and the payment that was quoted to you with out tax.

When finished hit the calculate button!

Here's the link Lease Calculator

Enjoy!

Art Post

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Weekend Document Imaging Notes


Gathered from Print4Pay Hotel Members from around the world and a few moles in very good places!

Notes from the recent Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Chicago:

- Keynote speaker was actor, Dennis Quaid, and Alan Greenspan, former fed reserve chairman
- The ARRA act represents some $19 billion in potential payments to physicians and hospitals that can demonstrate “meaningful use” of an EMR
- This stimulus “lowers the financial hurdle, undoubtedly” said Dr. George Taylor, VP of Health IT Programs at Northrop Grumman. “How do you solve the problem of every doctor – trained in different places, with different styles, and different preferences – with an EMR that’s designed for one?”
- Some were concerned that the stimulus money would benefit EMR adoption, but what was necessary to support it in the long term.
- Richard Howe, VP at Healthcare Informatics Associates, stated; “There’s enough money…that if they do it right, the cost savings in there will be enough…” “The stimulus package is adamant about standards – without that, you have nothing.”
- William Buddy Gillespie, VP and CTO for WellSpan Health said; “Sustainability is the word. The infrastructure is sometimes forgotten, and it needs to be stable, expandable and scalable to protect the integrity of the system and the data.”
- Dr. John Halamka, CIO of CareGroup was quoted; “There’s too much data and not enough wisdom…you can get 10,000 data points on every patient and look at it all. You’ll never sleep again! So there needs to be a way to separate the wheat from the chaff and tell you what youneed to know.”

According to imageSource magazine’s Jim Thumma, here are the Top 10 Pitfalls to avoid when implementing an ECM (electronic content management) project
- Lack of vision and leadership
- Poorly aligned business and IT goals
- Projects that are too broad or too narrow
- Failure to involve everyone who will be affected
- Overlooking front end capture
- Failure to integrate business systems
- Poor project management
- Underestimating time requirements for proper implementation
- Solution is implemented too slowly
- Insufficient change management

Iron Mountain, headquartered in Boston, announced it has acquired Legal Imaging Technologies Inc. of San Francisco, and will add it to its Stratify division. Legal Imaging focused on litigation support services for law firms in the Bay area. In 2007, Iron Mountain bought Stratify for $158 million.

Forrester Research released findings of poll on cloud computing: - Data storage needs are growing 30-40% per year
- Only 3% of companies have implemented cloud storage
- 43% are not interested in cloud storage
- 43% are interested, but no plans to adopt
- 3% plan to adopt in 2010
- 5% plan to adopt in 2011 or later
- 3% have already implemented
- 1% are expanding their existing implementation
- 51% will not implement due to security concerns

-=cheers=-